Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young’s refusal to backdown over AstraZeneca is downright dangerous

Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young. Picture: Tara Croser.

Downright dangerous. That’s what Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young’s refusal to backdown from criticisms levelled at AstraZeneca is.

Just the other month she slammed the notion that younger Australians could seek to get the AstraZeneca jab, something a growing number of health care professionals want to happen as the risks of Delta spreading within Australia started to grow.

Her rhetoric was more absolutist than you might expect from a public servant, much less one with health training who should know better. If it was deliberate, it was a destructive act. If it was unintentional it was surprisingly callow for someone with her experience. Especially given the successes Queensland has had managing COVID.

Either way you’d think someone in such an important position would think before they speak, considering the hesitancy that already existed about a vaccine that has saved whole countries from the worst of the pandemic.

The first time around her position was mildly defendable. The threat of COVID was more of an overseas problem than a local one. It certainly wasn’t threatening her home state of Queensland back then. But to double down on the remarks yesterday was a sign that Young puts consistency (even if when wrong) ahead of nuance and a willingness to adapt to a changing environment. A worrying approach for a public health adviser during a pandemic.

Consider the facts: there is growing evidence delta affects young people. Her own state is in lockdown because of a school outbreak. NSW has been locked down for weeks and there are surprisingly high numbers of younger people in ICU and on ventilators from this more deadly strain. A woman in her 30s has died from the delta variant.

Young can’t even fall back on wider health advice which might support her stand anymore. ATAGI has changed its advice, no longer suggesting AstraZeneca only be used by the over 60s. It now says any adult should get it if they live in outbreaks areas. You have to work pretty damn hard to find an infectious diseases specialist (which the Queensland CHO is not by the way) these days who is willing to back up Young’s comments.

Doing so was hard when she first made the comments, now its becoming nigh impossible.

So what is going on here? Maybe in her infinite wisdom Young believes she is right and everybody else is wrong. Maybe she doesn’t like conceding ground in public policy debates.

Maybe she wants to back her Premier, although I haven’t exactly seen the Queensland Premier rushing to Young’s defence on this one. Beaming in from hotel quarantine to back her up wouldn’t be that hard to do.

Young had better hope her correct decision to recommend a hard and fast lockdown in Queensland stops the spread of delta, because if it doesn’t her very bad decision to cause hesitancy in younger Australians to get the jab might lead to deaths and serious illness that should have been avoided.

Peter van Onselen is a professor of politics and public policy at the University of Western Australia and Griffith University.